dickoon wrote:... tend to fill the bottom of the leaderboard up ... This will make the 1500-rated performances slower and the requirements for better ratings less onerous.

I'd say that contributes, sure. I may be having less FVS than usual, but I'm also finishing empirically much higher (on average) in the daily rankings than I used to since the changeover, regardless of the newer enthusiasts.Personally, I put it down to getting to grips with new puzzle styles quicker than average, whereas unlike many others, I don't progress much on the standard types.

On another note. A player in our Liga match has "Nicht gelöst" (= 'not solved') against one of their puzzles. Does this mean they have started, but not finished a puzzle, or could there be some other explanation?

PuzzleScot wrote:On another note. A player in our Liga match has "Nicht gelöst" (= 'not solved') against one of their puzzles. Does this mean they have started, but not finished a puzzle, or could there be some other explanation?

It means "started, but not finished yet". Of course, it might be, that your opponent is quite now solving the puzzle, or it might be, that he gave up. After you waited the time you needed yourself, when you see this again, you know you won (unless you've got a Fehlversuch).

On the question of increased ratings after the change in format, I'm actually not sure, but I don't think it's an influx of less-experienced solvers alone. I mean, I definitely see that if you're the 75th best solver in a day, you get a higher rating when its out of 500 solvers than 300. But the thing is, as my rating steadily increased from 1800 to 2000 since the change, my ordinal ranking has also gone from somewhere around 110th to somewhere around 80th (about to fall back -- bad puzzles coming through the pipeline...). It is conceivable that we've had both more inexperienced solvers and some folks near the top dropping out, but I don't think just inexperienced solvers explains it.

The thought the theory that better facility figuring out new/variant puzzles provides a boost is actually pretty plausible. I tend to think that it's a relative strength for me.

Another thing I've noticed is at least at first there were fewer of those 20 to 30-second sprints. The "beginner" series has helped the sprinters (and hasn't been great for me), but I usually feel that I do better on puzzles where they aren't incredibly quick. (Though I do OK on the LMI screen tests, so maybe the issue is puzzles where I actually have to do a lot of computer clicking and so forth quickly).

The main reason I feel more comfortable/happy with the new format is that I like that feeling when you get into the flow of a puzzle. Most hand-designed puzzles have intentional break ins, and if you get a feel for the puzzle, you usually know where to look next for the next important step. This is particularly noticeable in puzzles like Hitori. On computer generated Hitori, I find myself scanning constantly for little minor details. On the puzzles at a place like Nikoli, I usually feel like I know what I'm looking for, and its more obvious what parts of the puzzle are signal vs. noise. That means I'm definitely more efficient on hand-crafted puzzles, but again the odd thing would be how that would play into the rankings. I mean, is the disparity in my performance between "curated" solves and "grind out the solution" solves wider than other puzzle solvers, so that I'm at a big disadvantage in puzzles that require fiddly grunt work and bifurcation? I dunno.

PuzzleScot wrote:On another note. A player in our Liga match has "Nicht gelöst" (= 'not solved') against one of their puzzles. Does this mean they have started, but not finished a puzzle, or could there be some other explanation?

It means "started, but not finished yet". Of course, it might be, that your opponent is quite now solving the puzzle, or it might be, that he gave up. After you waited the time you needed yourself, when you see this again, you know you won (unless you've got a Fehlversuch).

I overlooked the possibility, that your opponent was faster, but lost his internet connection and now is waiting to send the result. So there is a slight chance, that you still haven't won...

berni wrote:I overlooked the possibility, that your opponent was faster, but lost his internet connection and now is waiting to send the result. So there is a slight chance, that you still haven't won...

Aha! That's why I asked. I was sure I'd seen a nicht gelost miraculously turn into a win, and wasn't sure. Now I know. Thanks.

today's answer code was a little misleading. I lost 1 fehlver and about a minute trying to decipher why my code was wrong. I thought 1 and 2 referred to different loops encountered from left-to-right, rather than simply how many loops the relevant cell was contained in. Two puzzles for the price of one!

detuned wrote:today's answer code was a little misleading. I lost 1 fehlver and about a minute trying to decipher why my code was wrong. I thought 1 and 2 referred to different loops encountered from left-to-right, rather than simply how many loops the relevant cell was contained in. Two puzzles for the price of one!

I accepted your code too. (Several people obviously solved the puzzle and had problems with the code. Whereever this is the case I accepted the code now.)

With LMI and GM puzzles, answer codes for loops generally involve the length of horizontal segments in rows/vertical segments in columns, although you might typically ask for more than 2 rows/columns. That way, you are dealing only in numbers

I really like new format of crocopuzzle, but my carelessness with answer keys makes my crazy.I'm regularly forgoting to read answer key before start solving and usually put answer as I thought it should be. Only after "Fehlversuch" I lunch google translator and understand my mistake. Last time at Shikaku I put wrong answer format even twice

PuzzleScot wrote:Nobody on today's leaderboard has a negative rating! (Even one person with >8hrs and 2 FVS)Must be a first?

That's almost always the case, when more people have tried but not solved the puzzle than people who solved it. Theoretically the median is infinite in practice I take the time of the worst solver which means, the rating increase ist actually higher, than it should theoretically be. At the moment only about 5 persons need to solve the puzzle and the values will sink significantly...

By the way, meanwhile there are 3 minuses, which shouldn't be possible - looks like a bug... I'll investigate.

PS: No bug, I wasn't able to halve 135 correctly. More than half of the people who tried have solved the puzzle and therefore minuses are allready possible.

Another entry key the English speakers have to be a little careful of for the Arrows puzzle. U = down, not up. I think I took about 15-20 extra seconds entering my key carefully saying "unter/ober" to myself and still nearly messed up.At least "L and R" are the same in both languages.

A note for anyone else who had a hard time figuring out the rules for the Navigation Sudoku (which I definitely did):In the example, columns 2 and 6 are highlighted. Column 2 gives the position of all the 2's in the puzzle (so a "4"in column 2 of the first row tells you that the fourth entry of the first row is a 2). Column 6 gives the position ofall the 6's in the puzzle.

There may well be some readers who are put off by Croco-Puzzle being all in German. Some years ago, I wrote a walkthrough, but the user interface has changed in a few ways over time, most notably the daily puzzles. I have updated and extended the walkthrough, adding new sections about the freeform ("U2") daily puzzles, the Croco-League and the ratings and ranking system, bringing it all rather more up to date.

If you've been put off in the past, do consider taking another look; there's no charge for participation, there are 41 different types of puzzles (the 41st type, LITS puzzles, are new as of today!) to play through applets, plus variants of all types are published as .pdf files to solve. The league is tremendous fun all year round and a great way to meet teammates and make friends with them.

Lastly, the metagame of the ratings and ranking scheme is extremely compelling; if you're the sort of person who wants some sort of indicator as to how well you're doing - and this is not uncommon, being the principle behind martial arts gradings, golf handicaps and chess ratings - then I really like the Croco-Puzzle rating system. One of its biggest plus points is that it will additionally give you individual ratings in each separate type of puzzle offered by the site. (Other ratings systems do exist, such as the LMI ratings for participation in their tests.)

Indeed! It's something you can dip in and out of at will - no commitment required. Besides the walkthrough, we maintain a translation of all(?) croco puzzle applets here.Unfamiliar types can be practised using crocos weekly prize-puzzle archive here